ASU's football coaching search has fans scratching heads

ASU's coaching search has fans scratching heads

by Bob Young - Dec. 10, 2011 09:29 PMThe Arizona Republic

Some day, we're completely confident, Arizona State is going to introduce a new football coach.

We might even recognize his name.

And the school's administration will send Vice President for Athletics Lisa Love out to convince fans and boosters that the new coach is the guy she identified as her top candidate all along, and that the search went just like it was supposed to go.

In fact, ASU already has put this messy thing in the spin cycle, releasing a statement that essentially asked everybody to just butt out.

"ASU does not comment on searches for deans, faculty, administrators or coaches," it begins.

Anybody asking about deans, faculty and administrators?

No?

It goes on to suggest that there have been a lot of bogus reports based on leaks from sources that really don't know what is going on in the search and others who are just guessing.

It concluded by noting: "We caution all Sun Devil fans to read and listen to these reports with a healthy amount of skepticism and to rest assured that we are pursuing a broad, thorough and highly professional search for a new football coach."

The only thing being met by a healthy amount of skepticism is that there is anything "broad," "thorough" or "highly professional" about the search to this point.

But maybe that's just us, and the hundreds piling on via social media and various Internet message boards.

We don't know exactly what all has gone wrong. Hey, maybe there's just a lot of smoke and no fire at all.

(Ignore those sirens.)

But if unnamed sources can guess, so can we:

Urban Meyer was going to take the job but feared every time he blew his whistle, he'd be blindsided seconds later by Vontaze Burfict.

Rodriguez (snickering in background): "Wait, call back and tell her you're Chris Petersen!"

New Chief Operating Officer Steve Patterson, having worked for the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets, decided this could be the best way to turn ASU into a basketball school!

OK, a women's basketball school.

June Jones was willing to pay for his own $2.1 million buyout from SMU -- but c'mon, how embarrassing would that be?

While testing the direction the wind was blowing, Love inadvertently directed an obscene gesture at Larry Fedora.

ASU officials announced, "Senior staff members in the athletic department have been in contact with former football student-athletes from many different eras of Sun Devil football to gather their insights and input on our football coaching search."

So effective were they in this effort that more than 20 prominent former players found it necessary to meet at a Tempe hotel, form the "ASU Legacy Committee" and release a "Problem Statement" that says that ASU's "communication with its football alumni, concerning the new hire process, has not been understood or shared."

Love inadvertently left her "shopping list" of coaching prospects at Trader Joe's.

ASU President Michael Crow failed to factor in the "Nick Saban Effect" on college football coaching salaries, and asked the Board of Regents to budget only $2 million a year for the hire.

Potential prospects were left so dizzy trying to figure out who, exactly, they'll be answering to if they take the ASU job, they all quit taking calls from 480 and 602 area codes while holding out hope that a 310 number will pop up with the name "Dan Guerrero" on caller ID.

Having cut her teeth at USC, Love decided to follow the tried-and-true Trojans blueprint and hope for the next Pete Carroll with her fourth choice.

To save a few bucks, ASU's search party flew commercial and missed a meeting with Mike Leach, who was on a private charter to Pullman, Wash., by the time a real search party had to be dispatched to locate ASU's search party.

They were found wandering and disoriented, but otherwise unharmed.

ASU made the mistake of hiring a headhunter to help conduct the search, but Burfict cold-cocked him and said he takes care of all the headhunting around here.